This is an unofficial and oftentimes humorous look at my Region19 Board of Education experience. I will try to stimulate interest and discussion along the way. This is a sandbox of ideas that we'll explore together so feel free to comment.

Pages

Search This Blog

Loading...

Loading...

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Manufacturing Predators - One Teacher at a Time

The real crime in Guilford is the conspiracy to destroy an English teacher's life.The real crime in Guilford is making kids feel dirty for reading.The real crime in Guilford is making kids hate reading near their parents.The real crime in Guilford is that a teacher was intimidated into resigning.The real crime in Guilford is that the person who has lost his life, reputation and good-fortune is still being hunted by predators.

Mom let the cat out of the bag... a comment posted by annoyedparent at THEBEAT says,

I can related to the way you must have felt to think that you 13 yro daughter’s teacher is some kind of predator, you must have been scared. Felt the need to protect you kids, I get it. I know that I am often very protective of my own middle school age daughter, but you crossed the line.

I don’t know for sure but from what I can tell in the news and this thread, I don’t think this teacher was a threat to your girl and you going to the police was over the line. You made what is already a difficult job, teaching, just too much for someone… and they threw in the towel.

Shame on you.

How hard would it have been to at least talk to the guy?

And I feel bad for your girl, at a new school, everyone hates her because her parents flew off the handle and got a popular teacher fired, oh and I forgot to mention that she is 13 …er 14 Isn’t that an age where she would be looking for approval from her peers?

Yeah. This isn't about a graphic novel folks, this is about a parent who was rebuffed by school officials and conveniently escalated that rejection into a concern that this teacher might be a "predator" because she had no proof that he wasn't.

In my book, a false accusation that can destroy a person is a hate crime as pernicious and nefarious as the parade of ethnic, racial, and religious bigotries already recognized. This case is no different and needs to be investigated by the Feds.

Public schools are endowed by the citizens of this country with a sacred trust that they will act in the best interests of children entrusted to them. Implicit in that trust relationship is the understanding that the act of learning is an everyday exercise in heroicism by both teacher and student. Learning takes both people into unknown territories No one is perfect and no one is expected to be. And learning is sometimes a cold, unexpected awakening into adulthood.

All public schools must imprint the idea in students that students have a right to say, no. No to things that upset them. No to things beyond their maturity level. But they have an obligation to try and they have an obligation to keep up to the best of their ability.

And parents can respectfully say no as well.

But just because you say no does not make the material or the idea or the conversation obscene, criminal, or untoward per se.

I will never act officiously or permit personal feelings, prejudices, animosities, or friendships to influence my decisions. With no compromise for crime and with relentless prosecution of criminals, I will enforce the law courteously and appropriately without fear or favor, malice or ill-will, never employing unnecessary force or violence, and never accepting gratuities.

If the police in Guilford due to stealthy or well-known manipulation of police resources have helped stage a scenario that this teacher is somehow under suspicion of being a sexual predator based solely on hysterical imaginings then they need to be held accountable. Pursuing criminals is one thing. Manufacturing criminal intent from systematic manipulation of the process is another.

What 'FREE' means...

I use this blog to advise interested parties to evaluate, use, and exercise their own judgment on some products that will save them grief or money. The products all have usage agreements that must be honored. Schools must buy their own solutions tho I try to point them in the right direction.

You are not being "cheap" by using superior products that are open-source or created for the public good.

You are not being extravagant by buying something you like better.

My suggestions are the best I can offer today. And - surprise of surprises! - You are always responsible for your own choices.

I happen to love the work that the PBS series, Mr. Rodgers pioneered for children. Today, posthumously and surprisingly, he is being attack...

Education Quotes:

"There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.""

- Isaac Asimov

"We learned more from a three minute record than we ever learned in school." - from No Surrender

- Bruce Springsteen

"The truth is more important than the facts."

- Frank Lloyd Wright

”I can’t understand for the life of me what’s so great about being stupid”

- G.W. Bush

"In times of universal deceit, speaking the truth is a revolutionary act."

- George Orwell

"It's Freedom of Hearing that I worry about more."

-Tom Smothers (2008) discussing censorship

"When the Iron Curtain fell, all of the West rejoiced that the East would become just as free as the West. It was never supposed to be the other way around."

- Rick Falkvinge

"Education is a system of imposed ignorance."

-Noam Chomsky

"You're in a fishbowl so make use of it, man."

-John Lennon

"Heroism is just learning how to listen to your better angels." - Mort Sahl

"The only answer to organized money is organized people." - Bill Moyers

"If people insist on living as if there’s no tomorrow, there really won’t be one." - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.